A dual installation problem

Hiya,

OK, i decided to install W7 on my PC to have as well as XP64 Pro. I bought a new 1tb sata hard drive for it. When i did the install i kinda ran headlong into it all before checking out some forums and finding the correct way to do it. So i unplugged my XP64 hard drive (i know i shouldnt have done this now) and installed W7. Lo-and-behold i cant dual boot, so i searched some forums and found i should use EasyBCD, i installed this on W7 and ran it (i installed it on XP too but it didnt seem to pick up on operating systems installed). Now i have the option of choosing XP or W7 at startup, "fantastic! i thought", but XP still wont load when i choose it, (W7 loads no probs). When i choose XP i get a screen saying that XP is corrupted and that my NTLDR file is missing and that i need to do a repair to my XP OS. As i understand it this will cause problems because of XP needing to be installed prior to W7 for dual booting to be successful, and repairing is much the same as an install as far as the PC is concerned.

Also iv had 2 crashes last night while using XP64 resulting in a blue screen with white text, i havent a clue what it actually says but i know that theres a problem.

Any help that anyone can give will be greatly appreciated. Cheers

Why are you still using XP? It's old and outdated now.

Windows 7 is overtaking it rather quickly. Actually it has overtaken it now.

Come join the second decade of the 21st Century and enjoy Windows 7.

Nibs is right, XP usage has been overtaken (in the US), and will never return to the levels of 2006-07 again. 7 is King.

But as far as dual booting goes, I don't see why it won't work. As long as XP is installed first, 7 should install beside of it just fine. I've done it several times on my deceased notebook (the 32 bit version), with no problems except I had no Aero for Windows 7.

If there was nothing wrong with your XP install from the beginning, all that you had to do was defrag really good, use a partitioning tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition (it's listed in the Free Software Database on the main page of the forum), shrink XP as much as you need, then using the same tool, wipe the empty space.

Then install Windows 7 in the empty space. It's as simple as that. You'll need drivers for Windows 7, if you cant find ones that are listed as those for 7, usually Vista drivers will do. But it looks as though you have that covered, as in your OP, 7 is running.

I've never used the EasyBCD tool, from what I read on it, it allows one to install an older version of Windows after the newer one. I never had to do that.

If you really need XP, an alternative would be to install the Windows Virtual PC w/XP Mode (free with Pro & Ultimate), but it will be a 32 bit one. However, it won't perform the same as a dual boot. It'll just allow you to run some software/hardware apps that you can't run on 7.

As long as you have a backup of what you had in the beginning, you should be able to start over & go for the dual boot. We're mainly a Win 7 forum, other than XP Mode, not a lot of advice regarding XP is given here (for obvious reasons). Post back if you have problems after you get XP installed & working again, there may be other advice as to how to get 7 going for you.

Best of Luck,
Cat

If I were you, I'd reinstall both OSs, XP first, then 7. It will take one evening, but you will end up with a more stable environment.